Voice mail caller identification

Abstract

A notification system for providing unified alerts about messages left for a user in a communication system is coupled to a voice mail service in an office. When voice mail messages are left for a user, the voice mail service sends header information about the new message to the notification system. The notification system sends a notification of the new messages to a wireless device configured and selected by the user for receiving message notifications. Depending on the type of wireless device, the notification may include a link to a dialer application with which the wireless device can be connected to the voice mail service for selectively listening to the messages of interest. From the new message, the notification system may further extract information about the message sender, and use it to attempt to retrieve the sender's name from the user's personal contact list, for example. This information can then be included in the message header information sent to the user.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application is based on, and claims priority from, U.S. Appln. No. 60 / 244,985, filed Oct. 30, 2000 and entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING SELECTIVE ACCESS TO ENTERPRISE MESSAGES FROM A REMOTE DEVICE, commonly owned by the present assignee, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.[0002]The present application is related to U.S. applications No. 09 / 753,340, now abandoned, entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING UNIFIED COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT BASED ON PRESENCE INFORMATION, Ser. No. 09 / 743,333, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS BASED ON CALLER IDENTIFICATION AND CATEGORIZATION, Ser. No. 09 / 753,334, now abandoned, entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING ENTERPRISE MESSAGE NOTIFICATION TO A REMOTE DEVICE WITH RESPONSE ENABLEMENT, Ser. No. 09 / 753,124, now pending, entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING UNIFIED WAP ALERTS and Ser. No. 09 / 753,345, now pending, entitled METHOD AND S...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Their capabilities for providing access to messages are, however, rigidly fixed and quite limited.

In either event, access to individual voice mail messages, if there are several, can be quite time-consuming as the user has to listen through each message from the first to the last, many of which may not be of much importance to the user.

There is no way for the user to know ahead of time which message in a group of messages are important unless the user has already listened to all the messages.

Further, unless the user deletes messages, they will accumulate in the user's mail box, thus making the process of finding important messages even more problematic and time-consuming.

However, the problems inherent in conventional voice mail systems, coupled with the demands of attending to business tasks while away from the office, make the experience of accessing messages even more unpleasant.

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